Science Projects

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Duolingo.com

I love this app!I don't usually download apps on my phone, but this is the one I use every day. I took four years of Spanish in high school, but since then, I've done nothing with it. I can read OK (sort of like speaking in broken Spanish. I try to make sense of it, mostly guessing at the vast number of words I don't know or don't remember). But since my husband introduced me to this app a couple of months ago, I can't put it down. It's an app that teaches you a foreign language.

It offers courses in a variety of languages (fifteen), mostly European languages, and there are twelve more languages in the works.

Select the language you want to learn, and you're on your way.

It starts with very basic skill and then go on to more advanced skills.

I'm at level 11 in Spanish, but at level 1 in Russian and Irish. I thought about doing all three languages at the same time, but I found that I got quite confused and couldn't retain as many words. So, I decided to concentrate on one language at a time.

This screen shot is about a translation questions, but there are vocabulary questions (writing the meaning down as well as pairing exercises), along with enunciation questions.

I do Duolingo on my phone, so I don't have access to this Spanish words learned list (at least I haven't found it on my phone), but I don't think this feature matters much. You can finish a lesson in less than five minutes, repeating a few select words and sentences at a time. I found this very effective.

My son and daughter have picked up on duolingo (both choosing German), and they like it. My son says Duolingo is better than Rosetta Stone (which my husband and I purchased for them to learn another language).

So, if you have five or ten minutes to kill, this might be a good way to spend your time.